High American and Russian officials, including the best diplomats in countries, will keep talks about improving their links and the negotiation of the war in Ukraine, officials said in the most important meeting on Monday between the invasion teams of his neighbor almost three years ago.
The talks, scheduled for Tuesday in Saudi Arabia, mark another central stage by the Trump administration to reverse American policy on the isolation of Russia, and are supposed to open the way to a meeting between US President Donald Trump and the President Russian Vladimir Putin.
The recent American diplomatic blitz on war sent kyiv and the key allies to rush due to fear that Washington and Moscow will be ahead with an agreement that will not be favorable to them. France called on Monday an emergency meeting in European Union and the United Kingdom to decide how to react.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and Putin’s foreign adviser Yuri Ushakov left for the Saudi capital on Monday, according to Russian state television. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and special envoy Steve Witkoff will meet the Russian delegation, said state department spokesperson Tammy Bruce. Ukraine will not participate.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that talks will mainly be focused on the restoration of the entire range of American-Russian relations, as well as the preparation of possible interviews on the Ukrainian regulations and the organization of ‘A meeting of the two presidents. “
Bruce said the meeting was to determine how serious Russians are to want peace and start detailed negotiations.
“I think the goal, of course, for everyone is to determine if it is something that can go ahead,” she told journalists traveling with Rubio to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Bruce said that even if Ukraine would not be at the table for Tuesday talks, real peace negotiations would only take place with the participation of Ukraine. Kyiv’s participation in all peace talks was a foundation of American policy under the predecessor of Trump, Joe Biden.
Speaking on Fox News Channel Sunday morning future Program, Witkoff said that he and Waltz “will have” meetings towards the president “and hope” very good progress in terms of Russia-Ukraine “.
Witkoff did not directly answer a question on the question of whether Ukraine should give up a “important part” of its territory within the framework of any negotiated regulations.
The US Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, said last week that NATO membership for Ukraine was not realistic and suggested that kyiv should abandon the hope of winning all his territory of Russia – Two key elements on Putin’s list of wishes.
US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to go to the other countries and start talks to end the war in Ukraine in what Trump called a “very productive” call. It is not difficult to know if the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, will even have a role in peace talks.
Ukraine will not accept the results if Kyiv does not participate
The talks would mark a significant expansion of American-Russian contacts, almost three years after a war that has seen the ties falling at the lowest level for decades.
Lavrov and the Secretary of State of the United States, Antony Blinken, briefly spoke about a G20 meeting in India almost two years ago. The 10 -minute conversation did not facilitate tensions, and in fact they increased in the months that followed.
In the fall of 2022, American and Russian spymaster species gathered in Turkey in the midst of Washington’s concerns that Moscow could use nuclear weapons in the midst of the battlefield.
Tuesday’s talks follow a phone call between Trump and Putin in which the American president said they “agreed that our respective teams immediately start negotiations”. The call upset the years of American politics, ending Moscow’s isolation during its February 24, 2022, invasion of Ukraine.
After the call, Trump phoned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to inform him of their conversation.
Trump told journalists on Sunday that Zelenskyy will be involved “but had not developed.
The Ukrainian President said on Monday that his country had not been invited to the upcoming talks and would not accept the result if Kyiv does not participate.
The American-Russia talks “would give no results”, given the absence of Ukrainian officials, Zelenskyy said at a conference call with journalists from the United Arab Emirates.
Zelenskyy said he would go to Turkey on Monday and Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, but that his trip to the Arab nation was not linked to the American-Russia talks.
EU officials have put pressure on the block – which, with the United States, firmly supported Kyiv – to have his say in Ukrainian peace talks, and Zelenskyy and its officials also insisted on the fact that Europe should be present during negotiations.
Lavrov was disdainful when asked for a possible role for Europe, saying that “I don’t know what they have to do at the negotiating table”.
Asked about the expectations of talks in Riyadh, he declared that Trump and Putin in their call “agreed to leave behind this absolutely abnormal period in relations between our great powers when they actually interrupted contacts, except of certain technical and humanitarian problems “.
“The presidents agreed that it was necessary to resume a dialogue on all the questions which can be resolved with the Russian and American participation,” said Lavrov. “They mentioned the Ukrainian colony as well as the situation in the Middle East and in certain other regions of the world which are not quite calm for the moment.”
Lavrov has excluded from the possibility that Moscow would give in one of his territorial gains in the context of a potential colony, affirming that “there is not even a thought” on this subject.
Putin demanded that Ukraine withdraw his troops from the four regions that Russia illegally annexed in September 2022 but never fully captured and renouncing his attempt to join NATO as part of a potential peace agreement – requires that kyiv rejected.
Zelenskyy also confirmed that Trump’s special envoy for Russia and Ukraine, retired general Keith Kellogg, would arrive in kyiv on February 20 for “major conversations on security guarantees”.
Zelenskyy said he wanted to bring Kellogg on the front line and hoped that the American would take what he had learned from his trip to Ukraine to the White House, adding: “I think that after being returned to the United States, We will have an understanding of knowing when I have a meeting with President Trump.
Zelenskyy said that the possibility of opening up mineral resources in his country in the United States, as Trump suggested, should be accompanied by a written agreement on security guarantees for Ukraine. Ukraine and several European countries have insisted that without security guarantee, Russia could again invade the country, even if a regulation is reached.
These guarantees could include membership of NATO, on which Hegseth has paid cold water, weapons and economic support, said Zelenskyy. Ukraine has also expressed the hope of joining the EU, but it is complicated and could take years.
